The Incredible, Inspiring Death of St. Catherine of Siena
ChurchPop
Known for her holiness, St. Catherine was a mystic, theologian, philosopher, and spiritual advisor. Famously, she helped convince Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome (the papacy had resided in Avignon, France for decades). She the patron saint of Rome, of Italy, and of Europe, and is generally revered as one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.
Despite all of her accomplishments, one of the most inspiring – and instructive – events of her life was her death.
Attached to the end of her most famous work, Dialogues, is a letter written by Ser Barduccio di Piero Canigiani, in which he describes his eye-witness experience of the final moments of St. Catherine. Here’s what he says happened:Just before her 33rd birthday, St. Catherine became ill such that eating and drinking became difficult for her. After a few weeks of suffering, she had a stroke so terrible that her caregivers thought she had died. However, while they were mourning her apparent passing, she suddenly awoke, stood up, and “did not seem the same person as she who had fallen.”
That’s when things started to get interesting.
Her bodily suffering increased, but so did her devotion to prayer. She would pray 1 to 2 hours in the morning, walk a mile to St. Peter’s Basilica (she was in Rome), and spend the rest of the day there in prayer, “returning to the house so worn out that she seemed a corpse.”
Finally, her body gave out again and she was confined to her bed. But her suffering was not only physical, but spiritual: “[She suffered] the infinite afflictions of the soul which she derived from the consideration of the sins which she saw being committed against God, and from the dangers ever more grave to which she knew the Holy Church to be exposed, on account of which she remained greatly overcome, and both internally and externally tormented.”
These sufferings continued for the next 8 weeks. Yet as a new wave of pain would wash over her, “she would joyously raise her eyes and her heart to God and say: ‘Thanks to You, oh eternal Spouse, for granting such graces afresh every day to me, Your miserable and most unworthy handmaid!'”
This continual suffering took a physical toll: “[her body] was reduced to such a state that it seemed like a corpse in a picture” – but with an important qualification: “though I speak not of the face, which remained ever angelical and breathed forth devotion.”
This all continued until the morning of the next Sunday, when she seemed to become aware that her end was drawing near and asked for absolution from a priest for her sins. A priest arrived and offered her both absolution and extreme unction (anointing of the sick).
Then suddenly, it appeared to those around her that she was experiencing a demonic attack:
After this unction she began altogether to change, and to make various signs with her head and her arms as if to show that she was suffering from grave assaults of demons,
and remained in this calamitous state for an hour and a half, half of
which time having been passed in silence, she began to say: “I have
sinned! Oh Lord, have mercy on me!”
And this, as I believe, she repeated more
than sixty times, raising each time her right arm, and then letting it
fall and strike the bed. Then, changing her words, she said as many
times again, but without moving her arms, “Holy God, have mercy on me!”
Finally she employed the remainder of the above-mentioned time with many
other formulas of prayer both humble and devout, expressing various
acts of virtue, after which her face suddenly changed from gloom to
angelic light, and her tearful and clouded eyes became serene and
joyous…
Then she sat up, fixed her eyes on the crucifix in the room, and prayed aloud:
“It is my fault, oh eternal
Trinity, that I have offended You so miserably with my negligence,
ignorance, ingratitude, and disobedience, and many other defects. Wretch
that I am! for I have not observed Your commandments, either
those which are given in general to all, or those which Your goodness
laid upon me in particular! Oh mean creature that I am!”
Saying which, she struck her breast,
repeating her confession, and continued: “I have not observed Your
precept, with which You commanded me to seek always to give You honor,
and to spend myself in labors for my neighbor, while I, on the contrary,
have fled from labors, especially where they were necessary.
“Did You not command me, oh, my God! to
abandon all thought of myself and to consider solely the praise and
glory of Your Name in the salvation of souls, and with this food alone,
taken from the table of the most holy Cross, to comfort myself? But I
have sought my own consolation. You did ever invite me to bind myself to
You alone by sweet, loving, and fervent desires, by tears and humble
and continuous prayers for the salvation of the whole world and for the
reformation of the holy Church, promising me that, on account of them,
You would use mercy with the world, and give new beauty to Your Spouse;
but I, wretched one, have not corresponded with Your desire, but have
remained asleep in the bed of negligence.
“Oh, unhappy that I am! You have placed
me in charge of souls, assigning to me so many beloved sons, that I
should love them with singular love and direct them to You by the way of
Life, but I have been to them nothing but a mirror of human weakness; I
have had no care of them; I have not helped them with continuous and
humble prayer in Your presence, nor have I given them sufficient
examples of the good life or the warnings of salutary doctrine.
“Oh, mean creature that I am! with how
little reverence have I received Your innumerable gifts, the graces of
such sweet torments and labors which it pleased You to accumulate on
this fragile body, nor have I endured them with that burning desire and
ardent love with which You sent them to me.
“Alas! oh, my Love, through Your
excessive goodness You chose me for Your spouse, from the beginning of
my childhood, but I was not faithful enough; in fact, I was unfaithful
to You, because I did not keep my memory faithful to You alone and to
Your most high benefits; nor have I fixed my intelligence on the thought
of them only or disposed my will to love You immediately with all its
strength.”
Then she requested a plenary indulgence from the priest, saying that it had been granted her by the pope.She turned her attention to those present and, among other things, asked them to forgive her for not caring enough about their salvation. She exhorted everyone to love and follow Jesus above all other things.
She turned her attention back to God, and, making the sign of the cross, prayed aloud, “You, oh Lord, call me, and I come to You, not through my merits, but through Your mercy alone, which I ask of You, in virtue of Your Blood!” and many times she called out, “Blood, Blood!” Finally, imitating the example of Christ, she said, “Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit,” and died.
Ser Barduccio di Piero Canigiani reports she died “sweetly, with a face all shining and angelical, she bent her head, and gave up the ghost.”
Her body was left unburied for two days, “without any odor being perceptible, her body remaining so pure, intact, and fragrant, that her arms, her neck and her legs remained as flexible as if she were still alive.”